


the currents you create

by theoddoodisnude



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Homesickness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nail Polish, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Team Dynamics, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 04:30:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8387245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoddoodisnude/pseuds/theoddoodisnude
Summary: Some days, he woke up even more tired than he’d been when he’d gone to sleep, and willing his body to go through the motions was just—tough. Like wading through thigh-high water or running on soft sand that gave under the soles of his feet.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, boy. I wasn't really planning on writing anything for this fandom, at least not right now, but then I kind of off-handedly started writing something small based on the prompt "Kick his ass for me" from [this](http://an-exotic-writer.tumblr.com/post/145550544049/five-word-prompts) list. And then I started _thinking_ , which is generally a bad idea, but I thought about the lack of exposure to natural sunlight and how it might affect these space nerds, and especially Lance and Hulk, who must be used to more sun. And. Well.
> 
> **Warnings:** I don't actually know Spanish, so any help or corrections would be welcome. Additionally, I took the liberty to rearrange the castleship a little, and let's go _real heavy_ on the suspension of disbelief with the alien space technology. **But seriously,** Lance is sad, and though it's not mentioned outright, there are elements of seasonal depression and some of what that can entail, and a mental breakdown. Proceed with caution.
> 
> Title from The Currents by Bastille.

Space was cool, most of the time.

But some days – or some waking hours, at least, since the pressing reality of the fact that measuring the passage of time was a largely man-made concept was pretty clear out here – it was hard to convince himself to get out of bed. Partly because what awaited him out of it was training and more training, but mostly because it was just… difficult. There was no point to it. Some days, he woke up even more tired than he’d been when he’d gone to sleep, and willing his body to go through the motions was just—tough. Like wading through thigh-high water or running on soft sand that gave under the soles of his feet.

He missed the beach so much it made his throat close up. He missed the _ocean_ , he missed having to wash out sand from orifices he didn’t know he had, picking seashells with his cousins and nephews and nieces; he missed the soothing crash of the wave against his ankles. The playful spring waves just coming alive, the summer tides welcoming him home, the angry autumn currents, the rippling ocean breeze of the winter. He missed the tight feeling of salt on his skin.

And the others—didn’t get it. They didn’t feel the phantom ache of the unending expanse of the sea like a lost limb. They didn’t struggle to draw breath after days upon weeks upon _months_ of no natural sunlight on their skin. Well—Hunk did. Hunk understood. Hunk thirsted for a break from the bleak darkness of space and a sunlight reprieve almost as much as Lance did.

And because Hunk understood, he knew when to leave Lance be, but also when to seek him out; he knew when to cajole Lance out of bed and onto his back and laugh breathlessly with him as he carried him stumblingly through the castleship halls; he knew when to tip himself down on the bed and cuddle close and confess in a hushed voice what he missed most about home.

The cuddles were a lifesaver. Somehow—close, skin to skin—made everything feel less bad. It helped. If he closed his eyes, feeling someone cuddled up to him like this was almost like the sun, like his sisters’ hanging over his back or pressed up against his side, like his mother’s embrace.

After—after hours, probably, Lance wasn’t sure, his grasp on the passage of time wasn’t great out here in space – Hunk’s words died down into wordless hums, old lullabies, that were so intrinsically linked to his childhood that they felt familiar to _Lance_. It was grounding and made the numb tiredness pull back a little.

“Thanks, Hunk,” Lance murmured, the hint of a smile tugging the corners of his mouth up. He was lying on his stomach, an arm slung over Hunk’s chest, one of his legs draped over both of Hunk’s. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, dude.”

“You’re my best friend, man,” Hunk grinned, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’d do anything for you. Besides, I miss Earth too—and I miss you. I mean,” he paused to clear his throat and redirect his gaze, almost sheepishly. “I know we hang out all the time, but it’s not the same as—back home, you know? I like this, dude. The two of us hanging around, not really doing anything, just—you know, talking.”

“Yeah,” Lance stuttered out around the lump the size of Jupiter that was lodged in his throat. “Yeah, I get you. I— like it, too.”

He would tear down empires and brave stars to keep this—literally. It was a stupid metaphor when they weren’t even in their own star system, but Lance’s chest tightened and all he could think was— _you’re my North star_.

\---

Some days weren’t as terrible. Some days could even change halfway through, and Lance found it in himself to do more than turn up for the obligatory meals—he stayed behind, chatted with Pidge across the table about stupid sci-fi monsters and the likelihood of coming across something similar to them on their journeys. He coaxed Shiro into an arm-wrestling match, then another, and a third—by best out of five, Shiro had won every single one, but was chuckling kind of breathlessly, like he did when he didn’t expect to be so happy, but was startled into it somehow. It brightened up the room, and Lance’s mood along with it.

Lance argued with Coran over space recipes and leaned into Allura’s space, to try and nudge her into the debate. He made some passes at her, but didn’t flirt with any real intent, just enough for her to roll her eyes and hide a fond smile behind her hand.

Lance grinned; he flirted like breathing – quick, easy and assured. At least, when it was just for fun. If he actually attempted interacting with someone he had a genuine interest in, it wasn’t nearly as pretty. In a sense, it was also like breathing, but more the painful, anxiety, breath-stuck-in-your-throat kind.

As the others started to get up and get ready to—do something, seize the day or whatever, Lance dragged himself out of his seat and onto his feet; there was still one person he hadn’t annoyed today.

He found Keith, predictably, on the fighting deck, going at the poor practice drone like it was personal.

Lance stretched his arms above his head, took a deep breath and summoned the cockiest smirk he could scrounge up today, as he cocked his hips and with exaggerated movements crossed his arms over his chest, “Jesus, mullet, give the poor guy a break. Why don’t you go after someone your own species?”

Keith, because he was a ninja, didn’t seem the least bit surprised—his stride didn’t even falter a little, as he snorted and lunged at the drone. At his victory, the battle sequence automatically ended, and Keith deigned to glance at Lance and smirk, just a little tug at the corner of his lips, “It’s not sentient, Lance, it can’t be another species.”

“ _Ssh_ , he’ll hear you,” Lance hissed even as his smirk melted into a grin, but remained just as sharp, and swaggered further into the room. “You’re gonna hurt his feelings one of these days, man, and then we’ll have a Robopocalypse _and_ the Galra Empire on our hands, and then what’ll we do?”

Keith looked like he really didn’t want to ask, but couldn’t help himself; “Robopocalypse?”

Lance’s grin widened even further, “Robot apocalypse.”

Keith rolled his eyes so violently it must’ve hurt. He must’ve seen his own _brain_. “Of course.”

“Of course,” Lance agreed. He tightened his hands into loose fists and held them in front of his body, and jumped up and down on the spot. “But how’s about it, dude? Do you have what it takes to go mano a mano with _me_?” 

In way of answering, Keith lashed out with a leg without warning. Lance let out a gleeful howl and dodged it swiftly. This back and forth was familiar by now; he was by no means as strong or versatile a fighter as Keith – and oh _boy_ , if only Garrison-Lance knew that Voltron-Lance got on well enough with _Asshole-Keith_ to give him _compliments_ , he’d probably choke on the size of his disbelief and feign choking to death on it very theatrically – but Lance could hold his own. If nothing else, sparring with Keith, eight of ten times purely out of spite, had taught him a thing or two. Like fighting dirty.

Keith was fast, strong and experienced— Lance was fast, too, but more than that, he liked to think that he was _creative_. So he jumped and rolled and kicked and punched, rose to the tips of his toes and bent his back so far that he almost fell into a crab walk, karate-chopped with sound effects, just to get a rise out of Keith—

When he saw an opening, he reached out and lightly wriggled his fingers against Keith’s ribs—

The shocked, breathless _giggle_ he received, was well worth being knocked down on the mat for.

Keith leaned over him, pressed his forearm against Lance’s throat to really drive home to point that he’d won, and glared, “Why the hell would you pick a fight if you didn’t _strike_ when you had the chance?”

“I prefer to keep my enemies on their toes,” Lance wiggled his eyebrows, face split by a grin so wide and smug that even he couldn’t deny that he maybe deserved that slight increase of pressure against his throat. “Surprise them with the element of—surprise,” he wheezed out.

“Eloquent, dipshit,” Keith raised an eyebrow and finally eased back on the pressure. He sat back and slid off of Lance. “The element of surprise will only get you killed, if you use it to _tickle_ the Galra soldiers, dumbass.”

“I don’t know,” Lance started as he sat up and stretched leisurely. Wonders of wonders, when Keith rose to his feet, his offered Lance a hand up, and he took it. If only Shiro could see them now. “Maybe they’re secretly super ticklish. If nothing else, the image of Galra soldiers falling into giggling heaps might be worth dying for, man.”

“And who’d pilot the Blue Lion then?” Keith questioned, possibly simply for posterity, as they headed to the corner of the room. Keith picked up two water bottles – which meant that he either had the gift of foresight, was extremely thirsty or more attentive than Lance had given him credit for – and tossed one over to Lance, before leading the way over to the panorama window on the far side of the room.

“Still me,” Lance grinned. “I’ll be the first ghost paladin, back from beyond to tell you how the Galra react to being tickled. I’ll do it for science—“

“How noble of you,” Keith cut in.

“You know it,” Lance snickered. “That way none of you will have to try. Unless it turns out to be super effective.”

“How do you plan to pilot the Blue Lion as a ghost?” Keith asked, even though he looked like he didn’t particularly want to entertain this inane topic for much longer.

“Like I do now,” Lance shrugged and fell into a heap of limbs on the floor in front of the window. Keith sat down with a bit more grace beside him. “I’m the best blue paladin _ever_. I swear, Blue and I are till death do us part, man. _Beyond_ death do us part. I could totally pilot her as a ghost.”

Keith let out a snort that should’ve been way more unattractive than it was, but let it be.

It grew quiet, but the silence was comfortable, familiar by now. Entirely unbidden, Lance’s mind began to wander—it recalled other comforting silences shared at other times, with other people; his younger sister curled up against his back with a book, cooking with his _abuela_ , sneaking out at night to breathe in the ocean breeze, only to find the twins already there—

The longing—the ache—started to sink back in. Lance’s shoulders tightened and climbed up around his ears—

And Keith, tactless though he may occasionally be, pressed an arm against his, and despite himself, Lance could feel the tension bleeding out of him slowly. Turned out that closeness was pretty much a guaranteed way to calm him down in three minutes or less.

Of course that _Keith_ figured it out. And used it against him. What a jerk.

Lance was not grateful in the least, that was for sure. More disturbingly, however, he wasn’t even annoyed. He pursed his lips at himself, then rolled his shoulders and sighed, “Mind if I take off my shoes? I promise my feet don’t smell.”

Keith just waved a hand dismissively.

It was strange to be on such—agreeable terms with previous-Asshole-Keith. Even if Lance was fairly sure he’d never _truly_ hated him, it was weird to—ask if he was okay with something, to share _comfortable silences_ with him – to not need words. Lance snorted to himself and tugged off his shoes, and then his socks, for good measure.

Stretching out his legs was gratifying, and he hummed contentedly and wriggled his toes.

Keith went still beside him. Lance glanced at him from the corner of his eyes and was just about to ask what had crawled up his ass and died, when he noticed that Keith’s eyes were glued to his ankle—

“You have a tattoo?”

“Huh?” Lance glanced down at the little blot of ink on the inside of his left ankle. “Oh, yeah.”

It was an anchor—a family thing. _Family_ , their _abuela_ had proclaimed once, years ago now, _is what keeps you grounded when the waves of life try to wash you away_. So they had this rite of passage—when they turned eighteen, they got a tattoo of a small anchor, to keep themselves grounded and connected to each other.

Lance explained as much to Keith, though he tried to seep the sap away, keep the aching fondness out of his voice. It didn’t really work.

“It’s funny,” Lance managed around a chuckle he didn’t feel, because laughing and grinning and smiling was the only way he knew how to deal with problems. “I’m scared to death I’ll forget them. I mean, I know I won’t, you know? But the little things. The colour of mum’s eyes. Their habits. And like—I’m missing out on so much. I mean, I missed did that back at the Garrison as well, but there—I was on the same _planet_ , at least. Now, I—I know it’s stupid, but I don’t know what they’re wearing or listening to or how they’re _doing_ —my little sister, she’s probably the smartest person you’ll ever meet, she’s in high school and I don’t know how she’s doing. Little Loni, she’s one of my nieces, she just _started_ school— but I—“ he cleared his throat, desperately, and drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “I just—I feel disconnected, I guess.”

Keith was quiet for a long time, before he nudged Lance’s side with his elbow, “You have a really big family, huh.”

“Yeah,” Lance grinned weakly and rubbed his neck with one hand. “I’m the second youngest of seven, and that’s not even counting, like, the rest. There’s my _abuela_ , who’s the cleverest woman I know—and I have three aunts and two uncles, who all have a bunch of kids – my oldest sister and brother have their own families, too, and—and—oh, _quiznak_. I’m sorry—I, uh, didn’t mean to bore you.”

Lance tried to reel the enthusiasm back in as well as he could, offered Keith a sheepish little laugh. He wasn’t in the habit of apologising for himself or his words – not to mention his _family_ – but talking about them, about home, was as painful as it was relieving, and it felt a little bit insensitive. Did Keith mind? He probably minded. Shit, Lance could be such a prick sometimes; he clenched his jaw and drew a breath to apologise again—

“It’s fine,” Keith shrugged it off, looking out at the infinite space before them, but the small tug at the corner of his lips was genuine. He wasn’t one to mince words or lie, anyway. “I can’t say I keep track of any of them, but it’s cool. Cool that you care so much. And it’s nice to know you’re not just a dumbass.”

Lance shoved at Keith’s shoulder and made a show of being offended, but his scoff was more of a laugh, fond, and the upturn of his eyebrows too gentle.

\---

Peace was never a long-lasting thing; if they were lucky, they could get a whole week of rest before the alarm went off. If they were less lucky, they could get an alarm every or every other day—and if there wasn’t a call for arms, it was a distress signal from nearby planets or ships, and the constant onslaught of responsibilities and stress that none of them was really equipped to deal with, made everyone cranky and irritable.

Of course, choking on anger and frustration and worry would do that to a person; they were all forced to witness and acknowledge every gory detail of the death and destruction that the Galra left in their wake, again and again and _again_. Hardly a day passed when they didn’t have to grapple with their own – and each other’s – undeniable mortality, and that could make a tense situation tip over into a full-blown argument at the drop of a hat.

But even through all that, they all knew they were living through this for a reason, for a good cause; helping people was always worth it. That was the most important bit—that was what they all clung to.

Still, it was—trying, at the best of times. Not knowing what horror they’d face next, what they might lose this time—

Lance tried to lighten the mood whenever he could. Luckily for them all, he was hilarious, and knew that occasionally purposely subjecting them to his more obnoxious, assholeish tendencies was good for them in the long run.

“Space,” he murmured, mostly to himself, but loudly enough for the others to pick it up through their helmets. He earned something like fond exasperation from Blue, and a collective groan from the other paladins. “The final frontier. These are the voyages of the—“

“ _Do you have to say that_ every _time we leave the castleship and head out?_ ” Pidge cut off with a sigh. They could say what they wanted, but Pidge suddenly didn’t sound half as taut and tired. 

“Channelling my inner Captain Kirk helps me focus on the mission, you nonbeliever,” Lance replied, totally not grinning under his helmet.

“ _I’m not sure who this Kirk character is,_ ” Keith started, blaspheming in every sense of the word. He wasn’t particularly versed in the finer points of pop culture, but Lance was, like, eighty percent sure he played it up on purpose, in his own, special, _special_ attempt to ease tensions. At least Lance hoped so. “ _But I think you misunderstand your role in this, if you think_ you’re _the captain._ ”

“Jerk,” Lance replied, more on principle than out of any actual offense. “You’re _definitely_ not the captain, if that’s what you’re trying to say, dude. But I’ve got you down by know, mullet – you’re just mad I didn’t make an X-Files reference.”

“ _I want to believe,_ ” Keith said, a wry confession, which pretty much meant _that’s right, Lance, you’re one hundred percent correct, I bow to the accuracy of your perceptive comment_. Or something like it, at least.

“I knew it!” Lance hollered, cackling, ruthlessly smothering the part of him that went _how dare you be like an onion under which every layer is even_ more _likeable_. “You are such a nerd, mullet.”

“ _I hate to break it to you, buddy, but you’re worse,_ ” Hunk reminded him, being kind and a dick in the sweet way only he knew how.

“ _Chatter,_ ” Shiro chided them, gently and without heat, mostly to remind them that they were, in fact, on a real mission.

“Yes, sir, right away, sir,” Lance shot back instantly. Shiro, perhaps understandingly, heaved a sigh like he was praying for patience. 

A few minutes later, they reached the given coordinates of the Galra fleet that had called them out here in the first place. The Douchewaffle Commander of the Week that Zarkon had set on their tail was angry and vicious, but easy to rile up – but, unfortunately, so were Lance and Keith.

Keith, however, as the most impulsive one out of them, made an uncalculated decision and took a risk, which put him in considerably more heat than any of them would have preferred. But ultimately, they didn’t even have to form Voltron, and Keith’s injuries turned out to be minor enough that he didn’t need to spend any quality time with a healing pod, and Commander Douchewaffle lost half of his fleet. All in all, the mission was arguably a success.

\---

It was weird that he didn’t cry more. Lance had always been a crier, whether he liked it or not, but this sadness seemed too—profound, or something. On the days that he mostly lounged in bed or the nearest couch someone dragged him to, he was sad and numb and grey—it was beyond words, beyond tears, somehow.

That wasn’t to say that he didn’t cry at all. Sometimes, when the sadness wasn’t the passive-profound-grey thing that made his chest feel heavy, it could be very active, overwhelming, could make his heart twist in ways that made it hard to breathe for other reasons altogether, made it impossible to stay still.

It was that kind of sadness that chased him out of bed and found in him the kitchen area in the middle of the night, banging cupboards open and close to drown out the sound of his fast breaths and rapid heartbeats, as he desperately searched for ingredients—he wanted, he needed to bake, to _do_ something, he—

Lance’s breath wouldn’t unstick, pulse deafening in his ears—

He couldn’t remember the taste of _abuela’s_ alfajores.

He—he had to—but there were no ingredients, nothing he could use, nothing _familiar_.

Lance clenched his jaw so tightly it hurt and ignored his blurry vision; he continued to root through every shelf and cupboard insistently, reached as far in as he could and rummaged too roughly, hands too shaky—things clattered to the floor in his increasingly desperate search, but he didn’t care, he had to— _had to_ —

He looked again and again, and on his third search, he pulled out a bag of something like flour, but a whiff of it revealed a smell that was too sweet. As he fumbled to shove it back up on the shelf, it slipped out of his grip—and a cloud of flour-like powder exploded around him.

It woke him up like a fist to the diaphragm and punched the fight right out of him.

He couldn’t—he had to—it wasn’t—

Lance sank down to the floor. He leaned back against a counter, one leg stretched out in front of him, the other curled up close to his body.

He covered his mouth with one hand and cried.

His mouth tasted like sweet and ash, his lungs full of flour-powder and breaths he couldn’t quite draw, and he cried and cried and cried.

It was messy—tears on flour made everything sticky, and every shake and shudder and sniffle made another wave of flour-powder rain down from his hair to his face and shoulders. Half of the kitchen was covered in flour-powder, and the rest was cluttered by jars and cans and utensils he’d dropped or discarded. It was a mess.

But Lance just couldn’t—care.

He buried his face in his hands and shook with the _ache_ and cried.

\---

That was how Allura and Coran found him, an immeasurable amount of time later.

Allura’s hand flew up to her mouth to cover a gasp before she could stop herself, and Coran started forward like his honest-to-god, knee-jerk reaction was to give Lance a hug.

Lance rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and tried to—reel himself in, find something to ground him, a smudge of reason. But all he felt was sad and distantly ashamed.

“My eyes are just leaking,” he explained, as casually as he could, voice brittle and breathless, even as he ran a hand under his eye to wipe at the tears tracks that ran down the flour-powder on his cheeks, but all that did was make an even bigger mess of things. Then, for some reason, he blurted, too honestly, “I miss the sun. I— _joder_.”

This time, Coran didn’t stop himself; his steps forward were tentative, his body language open, as if he was approaching a wild animal. He dropped to his knees slowly beside Lance, softened his features, his voice, and asked, “Lance, my boy, is it alright if I touch you?”

The only words he could taste on the tip of his tongue were in Spanish, which was no use—no one would understand him here anyway. He bit hit tongue and hung his head and missed so _fiercely_ that his heart must have skipped a beat. But he nodded, because that required no words, and Coran reached out like it hurt him not to, and put his arms around Lance’s shoulders.

Lance tipped his head forward, leaned his forehead against Coran’s chest. He should’ve run out of tears by now, yet here they were, springing free anew.

Coran made quiet, comforting noises – half-words, really, mostly entirely nonsensical – and held him close.

\---

Distantly, Lance felt bad. He felt awful in general, but he hated that he couldn’t control himself and his emotions enough to keep from subjecting anyone else to this—to him, out of control.

He might have made some noise to articulate his shame and guilt, but Coran wouldn’t have any of it; once Lance was able to stop crying and breathe somewhat normally, he helped him to his feet, bundled him up in a blanket – that, logically, Allura must have retrieved at some point – and ferried him out of the kitchen, through the castleship halls and to his room.

They didn’t pass any of the others along the way, _gracias a Dios_ —it was probably too early for them to be awake, or at least to be in this part of the castleship. Lance was grateful beyond words as he stumbled forward on legs that carried him only reluctantly, and managed to stay upright solely thanks to Coran’s steadfast arms and presence.

Once they arrived, Coran ushered Lance into the bathroom; when he made to leave, Lance let out a noise that was entirely too pitiful to come from him, but nevertheless it must have. Coran smiled, kindly, always so kindly, “I’ll only get you a change of clothes, lad, I’ll be back before you know it.”

Lance engaged in a brief struggle with his pyjamas and dove into the shower. He turned up the water to too hot, and couldn’t breathe out until the bathroom door opened and closed to signal Coran’s return.

As the water washed over him, Lance felt the tension in his shoulders loosen, and some sort of inner dam broke—he bit his lip, but there was no stopping the barrage of words that spilled out, half of them in Spanish, most of them incoherent.

He talked about the sea and the rain and the _sun_ , the warmth, and how oppressive the dark void of space felt—he talked about his family, _abuela’s_ unparalleled cooking skills, his mum’s infinite kindness in the face of the suckiness of life. He found himself confessing things he’d never given air before, like the first time he realised he could fall in love with boys _too_ , and being awake to hear the door shut with a deceitfully polite _snick_ on the night their father walked out on them, and the constant, terrifying awareness that _abuela_ was growing older every day, one day she wouldn’t be there and how that kept him up at night.

He told Coran about being eight and standing with both feet firmly buried in the sand, staring at the ocean and feeling the _tug_ —like a thread tied around his breastbone, stretching across the sea. About not understanding what it meant until years later, but that tug—that was the lust for adventure, for _discovery_. About being ten and realising that that tug, time and time again, was where it had started so many times—throughout history, innumerable people had stood on the shore and felt the tug, the _yearning_ , to go out there and see, discover, conquer, _learn_ —

It had lit a fire in him. Lance half-laughed and half-sobbed, “The day after that, I told _mamá_ I wanted to go to space.”

After a while, the words started to tumble into each other, forming an unintelligible jumble. The pads of his fingers were wrinkly, his skin flushed with the temperature of the water.

Coran was there to steady him as he stepped out of the stall, careful and considerate and entirely too good. He didn’t judge Lance for a second – not his state of mind nor his state of undress – just tutted and hummed and towelled Lance’s hair, like taking care of the _mess_ he currently was, was nothing. His ginger hair was frizzy from the steam, his moustache droopy – any other day, Lance would’ve laughed.

Coran lead them out of the bathroom and to the bed. He tucked in Lance with utmost care, then settled himself down, leaned back against the headboard and didn’t say anything when Lance dropped his head to rest in his lap, rather than use the perfectly good pillow that was right beside them.

“I’m sorry,” Lance muttered after the silence stretched into something that called for—words. An explanation, maybe.

“Nonsense, my boy, you’ve got nothing to apologise for,” Coran replied immediately, and started running his fingers through Lance’s hair, as if he _knew_ that would instantly render him boneless. “It’s perfectly natural; you’re homesick. I’m quite familiar with it myself. In fact, everyone on this ship shares that very same feeling.”

“Not everyone’s this freaking—“ he gesticulated vaguely at himself. _Fucked up_. “Everyone else is—you’re all doing—better.”

Lance had never been good at admitting defeat, and the pill was just as bitter this time. Impossibly, there was a lump in his throat again—he closed his eyes. Took a shuddering breath. His tear canals should have dried out by now. They were most likely dredging up his last water reserves out of spite, because this day wasn’t bad enough as it was.

“Everyone’s dealing with it in their own way, Lance,” Coran said, gently. “I know you can’t always tell, but everyone has their own set of issues and their own ways of coping with them. For example, we throw ourselves into the battle against the Empire, and we all get a little lost sometimes – but we find our way back. We’ve got each other. We’ve got _you_ , my dear boy, and you keep us all more grounded than you know.”

Lance made a noise of protest—that was just not… true. He was a mess most of the time, less in control of himself with every day that passed. He wanted to help the others, and he _tried_ , but these days, whenever he succeeded, it was mostly a fluke.

“It’s true,” Coran insisted. “You’re selling yourself short here, lad. You raise everyone’s spirits with your good humour, you keep us on our toes, and you care for us, even when it’s difficult for you to. Truthfully, we’d be quite lost without you.”

Lance shook his head and stared into the wall. He grasped at words, but they all seemed insufficient. _I’m not that good, I’m not that special_ , he thought, desperately, _I’m sad_.

“It’s just—it hurts,” he whispered, in the end, one hand unconsciously clutching at the shirt over his heart.

“I know it doesn’t feel like it right now,” Coran said, brow creased like Lance’s pain made him hurt, too. “But it will get easier.”

Lance closed his eyes against, heart shattering all over again, because—“I don’t _want_ it to get easier, Coran.”

The sadness and guilt threatened to overwhelm him, but this was important. He threw an arm over his face and sniffled, “I don’t want to _get used_ to missing everything this much—I don’t—I don’t want a life where it’s _easy_ to miss home. I don’t want to, to—to be _okay_ missing my family, I just—I just don’t want to feel so shitty all the time.”

They – mum, _abuela_ , his sisters and brother, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews and cousins, the people that had built him up and were the components his heart was built from – they deserved better than to be a distant ache. They deserved every ounce of pain he felt for them, because they mattered _so much_ , so much more than words could describe. It was just a pity it also sucked.

Coran’s face echoed that sentiment, but there was really nothing he could say to _fix_ this. Lance knew as much, and appreciated that he didn’t try to smooth it over with empty platitudes, just said, “I’m sorry, Lance.”

Another silence stretched between them; Coran continued to scratch his fingers along Lance’s scalp, behind his ears, tried to smooth out the furrow between his eyebrows.

“I need to get back to the Princess,” Coran breathed after a while, his moustache fluttering. Carefully, he extracted himself from the bed, slipping Lance’s head down on the pillow gently. “Do you want to come along? We’d be glad for your company.”

“No, I think I’ll stay here,” Lance murmured, tugging the comforter up to his chin and burrowing down. “Thanks, Coran.”

Coran seemed reluctant to leave, but ultimately sighed, “Any time, my boy. But don’t—blame yourself, Lance. You’re entitled to your grief. Just don’t forget that you have a whole bunch of people who care for you right here in this castle, too, and we’re here for you.”

Lance gave him a wobbly, faint smile that didn’t reach as far as it should’ve to be halfway convincing. 

Coran reached out and stroked a hand over his forehead and murmured something in Altean, before leaving the room quietly, on light feet.

\---

Hunk came in and cuddled, quiet but for his absent humming, for a couple of hours, but inevitably left when the growling noises from his stomach grew too loud.

Pidge sneaked in not twenty minutes later and plopped down wordlessly at the foot of Lance’s bed with their computer.

“I’ve got the last, like, twenty Marvel movies on my hard drive, if you don’t mind Norton’s Hulk,” they said after a while, tapping away at the keyboard casually.

“Norton’s a weird Bruce Banner,” Lance commented, even as he dove under his comforter and reappeared on the other side of the bed. “Do you have Guardians of the Galaxy?”

“What do you take me for?” Pidge rolled their eyes, but shifted around until they were arranged in a messy sprawl of limbs to their liking.

As the film started, Lance’s eyes darted briefly to the top of Pidge’s head and then back to the screen, “Why do you even have that many Marvel movies on your hard drive?”

“Matt and I were gonna have a marathon,” they answered in a low voice. “After he and dad—after the mission—I… it was always a matter of time before I got them back. I started downloading the movies after I got to the Garrison, so I’ll be ready.”

Lance swallowed thickly, hurting for the unfairness of it. Pidge wouldn’t appreciate what they’d probably misconstrue as pity, so he snaked an arm around their shoulders and mussed up their hair, “Good idea.”

Pidge ducked out from under his hand and rolled their eyes again, “Just watch the movie, Lance.”

“You got it, Pidges,” Lance grinned slightly, and pretended not to notice the small smile on Pidge’s lips.

\---

He figured that they must have all learned about his minor breakdown somehow. No one said anything, but he’d left the kitchen a mess and hadn’t been able to bring himself to return for three days.

Maybe Coran or Allura had warned them off. Maybe they thought that Lance was too weak and fragile to take it if anyone—

What? Figured it out? Knew? Said something about it? It was hardly a secret that Lance was so homesick he couldn’t breathe some days. He was messed up and it probably showed in every tired line of his body.

But no one said anything, and more importantly, no one acted—off. Nothing changed. Thank god for small mercies.

\---

Lance dreamed about the airlock, about the endless vacuum of space trying to consume him; about weightlessness and certainty of death.

He startled awake, trembling and sweating, but rolled over and closed his eyes determinedly. An hour later, he drifted back to sleep, only to dream about rain on his face, gravel under his feet, grass tickling at his toes, the ocean breeze—

The next time he woke up, panting around the lump in his throat, Lance decided that sleep was for the weak and for the ones who could sleep through the night calmly. He slipped out from beneath his sheets, pulled Hunk’s hoodie over his head and kicked his feet into his Blue Lion slippers, and made for the door.

He didn’t realise he was looking for company, until he found Keith sitting on the floor in front of the panorama window on the training deck.

“Is this where you live now, mullet? Do you ever leave? Have you given up on your room? Are beds for the weak?” Lance wondered out loud, growing more agitated with each word. To his everlasting glee, Keith actually startled this time, which was very rewarding. “I hate to say this, buddy, but I was right all along. There’s something wrong with you.”

“You’re such a dick,” Keith rolled his eyes, and elbowed Lance in the ribs once he’d sat down. Then, in an unexpected bout of honesty, “I couldn’t sleep.”

Lance rubbed a hand over his eyes, “Yeah. Me neither.”

Maybe there was something in the air, or maybe the late-night hush lent the atmosphere some magic, because Keith knocked their knees together and asked, “Wanna talk about it?”

Lance raised and dropped a shoulder listlessly, “Not really. Do you?”

It was Keith’s turn to shrug, “Had a dream. It was a weird one.”

“Intriguing, pal. You can’t open with that and then _not_ tell me,” Lance nudged his shoulder, because that was safer than what he wanted to do, namely take Keith’s hand, but no amount of seeing past their differences and deconstructing their rivalry could justify that. Sure, they were friends by now, even if they’d never admit as much aloud, and Lance was fine holding hands with Hunk without it being weird—but he wanted to hold Keith’s hand in a decidedly non-platonic way.

Maybe the dim lighting and the distant stars were getting to him.

Keith didn’t seem to notice Lance’s inner monologue. He glowered at the floor like it had committed a space felony, which probably meant that he was struggling to find the right words. He bit his tongue, then rolled his shoulders back, and with clearly feigned calm, said, “I was on the Kerberos mission with Shiro.”

Lance’s chest tightened—it didn’t sound like this was an uncommon dream. He cleared his throat, cautiously urging him on, “Yeah?”

“Yeah, which is nothing new,” Keith confirmed. He was too blasé about it; Garrison-Lance would be spluttering in indignation and rage at Keith’s attitude by now, but Voltron-Lance, in an unexpected fit of maturity, saw it for the mask that it was. It was a Christmas miracle. “And then the Galra came, and the scene changed. Suddenly we were back at my shack in the desert, and we were fighting an army of Galra-Shiros, and I—there were so _many_ of them. I couldn’t kill them, because they were _Shiro_ , but then I—then the real Shiro got stabbed. Because I couldn’t protect him,” a couple of quick, shallow breaths, before they were forcibly evened out. “I fell down beside Shiro, took him into my arms, and then—he opened his mouth.”

Lance leaned far into his personal bubble, wholly immersed in the storytelling, “He opened his mouth… and then what?”

“He opened his mouth,” Keith repeated. “And the X-Files theme came out.”

Lance blinked once—

And he couldn’t hold back the helpless little giggle if it killed him, never mind keep it from bubbling into laughter.

He valiantly tried to mask his laughs in a series of coughs, but it was a losing battle, “Dude, I’m so sorry, I’m not laughing _at_ you, it’s just—it’s just—“

But Keith—Keith was _grinning_ , a small, luminous thing.

“It’s fine,” Keith’s shoulders were _shaking_ , he was also _laughing_ , and Lance _had_ to be be dreaming. “I woke up after that and came here. I’ve been contemplating my life choices since.”

“I get you, man, _Dios mío,_ ” Lance ran a hand under his eyes to catch any stray tears, still chuckling, half-hanging over Keith’s shoulder. “Wow, I don’t even know what to say. You should savour this moment, space cowboy, I’m rarely rendered speechless.”

“Obviously you’re not completely speechless,” Keith pointed out, but he looked quite pleased with himself. Lance didn’t understand why, until he realised that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed like this.

The little shit was smug about making Lance laugh and relax. What an asshole. Lance’s cheeks absolutely did not grow hot.

“I’ve no witty comeback, my man, this is probably as close as you’re ever going to get,” he grinned, trying to regain some ground. “How much X-Files have you watched for it to screw up your dreams like that?”

“All of it,” Keith shrugged. “Like, three times.”

“Oh my god, there are _so many_ shows to choose from, and you’ve watched the X-Files three times?” Lance groaned and raised his hands to the ceiling, praying for divine intervention. This _nerd_. “No, wait, let me guess – you like space aliens, the supernatural and conspiracy theories. Your other favourite shows are the Twilight Zone and Twin Peaks, am I right?”

It was at least eighty percent jokingly, so the taken aback and slightly put-upon expression that flitted over Keith’s face came as a surprise.

“How’d you guess?” Keith wondered, frowning, genuinely confused. A small wrinkle formed between his eyes, on the bridge of his nose, and oh, _Dios_ , it was adorable. Lance wanted to kiss it, but also dip his face into acid before he got that far. “I might rank Battlestar Galactica before the Twilight Zone, though.”

Lance blinked, for once unsure of what to reply—there were just too many options to choose from. In the end, he shook his head in disbelief and exclaimed, “You’ve _got_ to be kidding me. Are you physically incapable of watching anything that came out after the turn of the century?” he continued to shake his head, and ran a hand through his hair to have some sort of outlet. “Jesus _Christ_ , what’s your excuse for not watching Star Trek, then? You could’ve watched the original series, or, like, literally any of the _many and awesome spinoffs_ there are to choose from? Star Trek should be _right_ up your alley, mullet, I can’t believe you.”

“Maybe that’s why I _haven’t watched it_ ,” Keith shot back, eyes narrowed. “There are so many series! Thousands of episodes! How do you expect me to get around to all of that?”

“How— _how_ , the man asks,” Lance briefly looked for solace in his palms, but found none. “That’s it, mullet head, when we get back to Earth, you and I are going to have a _long_ , educational Star Trek marathon.”

“Yeah?” Keith raised an eyebrow, eyes glimmering as if Lance had just issued a challenge.

“Yeah, you can bet your sorry ass we will,” Lance grinned wildly, as if he, in turn, was stupidly accepting the non-existent challenge, as well.

“Good, _Lancer_ ,” Keith’s eyes were sharp and dangerous.

“Great, _Keefer_ ,” Lance shot back, claiming the last word and considering it a win.

\---

It wasn’t until later, when Lance was back in his bed, that he realised that they’d essentially set up a future date.

\---

There was a time and a place for something so stupid as a crush, and _right now_ and _space_ were not it.

They were in the middle of a _war_ , for god’s sake. Besides, of all people to develop a crush on, Keith was probably the worst possible choice—he rocked a _mullet_ and was also an _asshole_. A stubborn asshole. With a really nice smile, but that was beside the point.

He was also an asshole who probably wouldn’t want to touch a box that said “Non-Platonic With Lance” with a ten foot pole.

Lance resolved to not think about it. If he didn’t lend it any traction, didn’t even gush or whine to Hunk about it, then it might go away by itself. Yeah. That would solve the problem. Totally.

(It wouldn’t).

\---

When he was feeling particularly pathetic, Lance liked to remind himself that they _all_ missed Earth, and that he was just much worse at dealing with it than the others were. Rubbing salt in his own wounds or whatever.

But despite the fact that misery liked company or whatever the fuck that was about, Lance wasn’t about to subject anyone else to his foul mood, at least this time; so he grabbed a handful of space-synthesized nail polishes and hid out with Blue. He slid down on the floor with his back to one of her front paws, knees tucked close to his body, as he tried to file his nails with slightly trembling fingers; Blue rumbled comfortingly in the back of his mind.

Lance had perfected painting nails when he was twelve, as a natural consequence of having four older sisters who liked to order him around. Sometimes they’d barter with chores— _Lala, if you do my nails, I’ll do the dishes_ or _if you don’t tell mum I’ll do your nails for a week, sis, please_ or _I’ll only drive you if you do my nails first_. Some of his best memories were of being eight, being ten, twelve, fifteen—being babysat or babysitting and having movie nights or spa nights, with face masks and head massages and nail painting. It always made him feel loved and cared for—it was a way for him to love and care right back.

And it was a nice way to somehow—lessen the vast distance between them.

Lance swallowed thickly and sniffled once. No crying now. Nail painting.

What colour should he do? Black, to match his mood? Blue, like his Lion and the sky and the sea? Red, like Keith, like—

Fuck.

Crap, crap, crap. This was just as bad, to be honest.

Lance rubbed his eyes furiously, and compromised on a burgundy polish.

Blue, the traitor, made a noise that was half-soothing and half-amused.

As he was finishing up the second coat on his left ring finger, Shiro appeared out of _thin air_ , with a polite, “Lance?” that made Lance startle so violently that he smeared nail polish over half his finger. “What are you doing?”

“Single-handedly taking down the Galra Empire, as you can see,” Lance bit out, with more heat than intended. In an attempt to smooth it over, he wriggled his fingers and added, “Wanna help?”

Shiro, to his credit, just sat down beside Lance and said, “I don’t know how. I’ve never—painted my nails before.”

“’S alright,” Lance shrugged, a tendril of warmth piercing his dark mood—he knew how to do this. “Pick a colour and I’ll do yours when I’m done with mine.”

Shiro picked black. When Lance rolled his eyes and lamented the predictability of that choice, Shiro chuckled and conceded to have the nails of his forefingers painted a glittery silver.

Lance half-expected it to be awkward; not all dudes were of the nail-painting persuasion, but more than that, he and Shiro didn’t really talk much outside of training, fights and meals—but his apprehension was unfounded. Shiro just planted his hands on Lance’s thigh like indicated, and talked softly, carefully, about his own interest in drawing, but how he hadn’t done it since before the Kerberos mission. He didn’t say anything about the Galra hand, but it did have nail-shaped outlines at the tips if the fingers, so Lance did his best to paint those, as well.

Gradually, Shiro seemed to unwound, and a tension Lance hadn’t even noticed before slowly seeping out of his body. Blue hummed in the background, and Lance was fairly sure that the Black Lion was equally content.

It was nice.

“Oh! Hi, guys,” Hunk exclaimed as he shuffled into the hangar and towards them. Once he saw what they were doing, his face lit up, “Oh, _man_ —Lance, could you do mine, too?”

Lance’s face split into a grin, “Of course, dude! Pick your poison.”

Hunk clapped his hands in delight, because he was a sweetheart, and immediately dropped down to the floor and buzzed through the colour collection.

As Lance finished up Shiro’s nails with the very strict orders – “Don’t touch anything. Ruin this and you’ll lose a hand. I still need to apply a topcoat, but this needs to dry first. Capisce?” – Hunk rambled on about how long it’d been since Lance has last done his nails.

“I had green the last time, so maybe I should go orange? Man, last time was so great, do you remember, Lance? It was the day after you’d been switched to fighter pilot and we partied _so hard_ , and you were _so_ hungover—“

“I remember,” Lance’s stomach churned in sympathy with past Garrison-Lance’s pain. It had not been pretty.

“So we stayed in and I brought you pizza,” Hunk continued, undeterred. “And then we watched Next Gen and you did our nails. Oh, boy, that was so much fun. What colour should I go this time? I miss your other nail polishes, man,” he paused to sigh mournfully. “I miss the sparkly ones.”

Lance throat maybe tightened, a little, and his eyes maybe threatened to spill over, a little. In his defence, Hunk was too good for this world. “I think there should be a translucent one with sparkles,” he willed the words out around the heart-shaped lump of fondness in his throat. “Since you’re my favourite Chunk of Hunk, I can do you a special deal – I’ll apply that instead of topcoat. You’ll have orange _and_ sparkles, my guy.”

Hunk’s eyes were big and shiny, like he, too, was about to maybe shed a tear or two. He nodded, smile wobbly, “That would be aces, man.”

“Great, doodles,” Lance replied, blinking rapidly, holding Hunk’s gaze.

One of them was going to cry. Shiro's eyes flittered between them, looking increasingly alarmed, like he wanted to intervene but couldn't for the life of him figure out how to go about it.

Pidge, of course, chose that moment to materialise from behind the Green Lion.

“Why are you guys crying?”

“We’re not crying,” Lance wheezed and rubbed an arm over his eyes.

“We’re crying a little,” Hunk admitted, wetly.

Pidge raised both eyebrows and generously elected not to comment on that, despite ample opportunity.

To award their kindness, Lance gestured at the wonderland of nail polishes and said, “I could do yours, too, if you want, once I’m done with Hunk.”

“I haven’t worn nail polish in—years,” Pidge admitted, suddenly muted and far away.

It was a pretty monumental confession, judging from the way it was said—so Lance tried to lure some levity into the situation by saying, “Well, there’s no time like the present, dude.”

Pidge seemed to deliberate for a long moment, before they nodded. “Scoot,” they instructed Shiro, primly, and promptly claimed his spot. “I want yellow.”

“Good call,” Lance grinned. The nail polishes were spread out across the floor at this point, but he found the one he wanted quickly enough; Lance reached over Pidge’s lap and picked out a nice, sunflower yellow. “How about this?”

Pidge inspected it for exactly seven, long seconds, before they nodded decisively, “That’ll do, Lance, that’ll do.”

“Geez, Pidges, I appreciate the vote of confidence,” Lance sighed, dramatically, purely for show, and turned his attention back to Hunk’s nails.

Coran stumbled into the hangar by the time Lance was finishing up the first coat on Pidge’s nails and was working on the glittery coat on Hunk’s, presumably on a hunt for the mysteriously missing – and probably more worryingly _quiet_ – paladins. Upon discovering what they were up to, Coran clasped his hands under his chin and exclaimed, “How charming! How quaint! Is this an Earth ritual? How many colours to choose from! Lance, my dear boy, would you care to initiate me into this fascinating tradition?”

There really wasn’t much to say to that. The paladins exchanged long-suffering looks, shrugged, and Lance quirked his mouth into a smile, “Sure, Coran,” then, in a move that he was sure to regret, he nodded at the available polishes and added, “Go wild.”

Coran’s answering smile was nothing short of gleeful.

He chose different colours for every finger. Of _course_ he did. Lance should've really seen that coming, but Coran's excuberance made it nearly impossible to begrudge him anything, so Lance resigned himself to his nail-painting, rainbow-coloured fate with an amused huff and a minimal amount of complaining. 

The second to last puzzle piece deigned to stroll into the hangar about half an hour later.

“This is the weirdest circle jerk I’ve ever seen,” Keith greeted them, one eyebrow ever-raised. He slunk down to sit beside them anyway.

“Screw you, you jerk,” Lance returned, good-naturedly. “Do you want me to do your nails or what?”

Keith chewed on his lip and glowered at him; his eyes drifted from person to person around the little circle and seemed to come to a decision. “If you get nail polish all over my hands, I will kick your ass.”

“Well, you’d better make sure to sit still and not _smudge it_ , then, dumbass,” Lance stuck his tongue out.

Keith rolled his eyes and chose a dark blue hue.

Lance finished Coran’s nails with utmost care, chattering on about the dos and don’ts of drying nails, and the superiority of the nail polish collection he had back on Earth. Coran chuckled and smiled and indulged him, because he was the best person in the galaxy, bar only Hunk, probably.

Once they were done, Keith crawled across the floor and plopped down in the place Coran had just vacated. He sat close, their knees touching; Lance’s traitorous mind immediately went fuzzy around the edges. His dumb body instinctively wanted to shift even closer, until there was no space between them at all.

(This stupid, non-existent crush-thing was getting out of control).

Lance cleared his throat and did absolutely not croak, “Hands on my thigh, mullet,” and regained his wits long enough to add, “And I know it’s a lot to ask of someone like you, but you have to sit _still_.”

“Someone like me?” Keith echoed, looking decidedly unimpressed.

“Yes. An idiot,” Lance waved a hand flippantly. “Don’t look at me like that, _Keefer_ , we both know you can’t be still for ten consecutive minutes unless you’re unconscious or asleep.”

“I don’t know, Lance,” Shiro piped up, just as Keith opened his mouth to reply. “He’s sat through every season of the X-Files. Maybe all Keith needs is the right incentive.”

If Lance didn’t know better, he’d say that Shiro sounded _teasing_. He wasn’t sure what to do with himself—it was a bit too suggestive, and he struggled to formulate some sort of comeback, but Keith was making agitated, spluttering noises and there was something like a blush dusting his cheeks, which was absolutely _terrible_. And distracting.

Shiro just laughed—Pidge and Hunk’s grins were too wide, shark-like, too much like smirks, and _definitely_ too knowing.

“I’ll show you _incentive_ ,” Lance muttered for lack of a better reply, despairing at his own ineloquence. He turned his glare on Keith, “Hands where I can see them, space cowboy.”

Keith rolled his eyes and murmured something that sounded suspiciously like _who’s the idiot now_ , but did offer up his hands. Much like the others had, he put his hands on Lance’s thigh and splayed his fingers. His hands were warm, palms broader than Lance would have thought—in no way were they almost as distracting as the earlier blush, and Lance's mouth did not in any way or form suddenly become as dry as the stupid freaking desert Keith's dumb love shack was planted in. His fingers didn’t tremble as he brandished the basecoat and grasped at the first topic to bicker about that came to mind.

In absolutely no way could he still feel the scalding imprint of Keith’s hands hours later.

Shit.

\---

Allura called them for dinner, and to her credit, her eyebrows didn’t stray far enough to meet her hairline when they all showed up together at the same time, but it was a close call.

They settled down in their usual spots and started shovelling food goo onto their plates, but by some unspoken agreement, everyone was really taking care not to touch or smudge their nails. Lance couldn’t have stopped the warm, pleased smile if he tried.

No one mentioned it, but Allura’s gaze danced down their shoulder to their arms, hands, nails—it glided from person to person, and every new colour she saw seemed to make her smile brighten a notch. When she was done, her eyes wandered up and down the table again, her smile secret and warm and contagious.

Lance caught her eyes and winked; Keith groaned and Pidge smacked his shoulder.

Several hours later, when everyone had retreated to their rooms, Lance tiptoed to the observation deck; Allura was already there, whispering softly to her mice.

She chose a cherry petal pink nail polish.

\---

A day passed, another, another and another and another—one was good, the next was bad, one was awful, another passable – time meant nothing, and even on the good days, everything seemed heavy.

He dreamed about warm hands, dark blue nails, the tickle of soft hair against his neck.

He woke up to a thudding heart and the impression of sunshine on his skin. The day passed okay.

Another day passed; there was an alarm, a minor run-in with a handful of Galra ships that seemed to be lost on the wrong side of the galaxy. They fought and won, and one day blurred into the next, and so it went.

He dreamed about seashells and cookies he couldn’t taste, to the soundtrack of crashing waves.

He woke up and longed to go home so much he could _die_.

Lance stayed in bed long after he woke up. The only proof that there was, in fact, a universe that existed outside of his bed, was Keith. Keith, who stormed in without knocking, insulted him, dropped a tray of breakfast beside his bed, threatened him with bodily harm if he didn’t eat up, and stomped right out again, only pausing for a hundredth of a second to smooth a lock of hair back from Lance’s forehead.

Say what you want about Keith, but the little jerk _cared_.

Lance wished that he could talk to his mum. He wanted to take his mum and _abuela_ , grab them by the shoulders and scream, _he makes a_ mullet _look good!_

They’d understand. They’d _get it_.

Lance made a pathetic little noise in his throat and absolutely did not cry into his pillow. He didn’t know it was possible to miss something so much it physically hurt—but here he was, exhausted and aching and feeling like a bruise. His heart would just not untwist from its distinctly bent shape in his chest.

Seconds turned to minutes turned to hours; every breath was heavy and reluctant and required work. Pidge came around and dug him out of his room for dinner, Shiro convinced him to stay and suffer through some Together Activities, like bickering and board games.

Lance fell asleep feeling marginally better, and woke up feeling halfway-okay. Okay enough to shower and dress and go to breakfast; okay enough to spar with Keith and joke and blush and laugh.

Okay enough to notice that Hunk’s sigh was so profound that it made Coran’s strange, Altean proverbs seem shallow.

So after sparring with Keith – and sticking around to chat with Keith, leaning against his shoulder as he dredged up the first jokes he’d thought of in days, which was sad, but paid off in Keith’s too-deliberate eye roll and only half-smothered laugh – he traversed to less-frequented parts of the castleship in search of his friend.

Lance found Hunk in an alcove a few doors down from the Lions’ hangar. There were a bunch of tools and bits of scrap metal spread out around him, the lights turned up to max, but he didn’t seem to be—working on anything. Hunk’s gaze was stuck somewhere between the alien tools and the literal and figurative space around them, the bright lights reflecting in his eyes and glittering like stars.

The look was too distant, too sad—too much like what Lance felt, half the time. It looked awful on Hunk’s face.

“Hey, man,” Lance chirped with all the levity he could muster, sliding right up into Hunk’s space and fitting himself neatly into the Lance-shaped groove in Hunk’s side. “What’s up?”

Hunk lifted his broad shoulders into a noncommittal kind of shrug, which belied the heaviness of his answer; “You know I denounce violence when I can—I mean, it’s impossible for us to avoid it entirely, since we’re paladins of Voltron and all, but I mean—I could probably murder for my mum’s lasagne.”

The lump formed in Lance’s throat so fast he almost choked on it. Yeah, he knew what Hunk meant.

“I’d go full on maiming,” Lance rubbed his cheek against his friend’s shoulder. “Not sure if I’d decapitate, but I’d definitely consider it. I feel you, man.”

“I know,” Hunk’s eyebrows furrowed painfully. “I know it’s killing you that we can’t go home, and I wish I could—I mean, if anyone deserves to complain about this, it’s you, but—“

“Dude, chillax,” Lance held up a hand. “I miss home like crazy, but that doesn’t mean that _you_ can’t. I’m pretty sure there’s enough missing to go around. I complain all the time anyway, so complain away, big guy. I am all ears. I’m here for your convenience, Hunky Punky. Shoot.”

Hunk rolled his eyes, but raised a hand to trace his headband, “I miss surfing, man. I miss going home for the holidays and catching the waves—I miss going back to the Garrison. Like, I miss the Garrison a little, but mostly just—the feeling of leaving home to go home, you know? And I miss Aunt Nellie’s potluck dinners. Even the freaky, deep-fried frog legs. I miss us—like, going to that pizza place downtown? The one where they always give you Pepsi, no matter what you order. And—I know it’s stupid, but I kinda liked it when our biggest problems were passing the fly sims and getting caught sneaking out. For the record, and I know I’m going to regret this, but I miss the way you used to rant about Keith’s hair for, like, twenty minutes a day.”

“I think I might have a crush on him now,” Lance admitted, voice barely above a whisper, despite his prior resolve to not even think about it.

“Dude, there’s no _might_ ,” Hunk slung an arm around his shoulders. “I thought you knew. You haven’t been doing the whole—crazy in denial thing you do. That I love. I mean, I love you, man, but it’s pretty crazy. You’ve got this crazy tirade that makes the white of your eyes stand out—a lot.”

“It’s okay, bud, I got it,” Lance huffed.

Hunk breathed a noise that was almost a laugh and almost a sigh, “I miss spices. Creds to Coran for making space goo edible, and landing on alien planets and sampling their food is cool—but I miss, like, our Earth spices. Give me some oregano, man, some curry. And I haven’t ever gone this long without having a proper chili. It’s _killing_ me.”

“There’s gotta be _some_ aliens that have something we can make a proper chili from,” Lance pointed out, as he vowed to damn well _find_ something to make chili from, even if it killed him.

“I guess,” Hunk shrugged and leaned his head against the top of Lance’s. “I miss how we used to be. I know I said it before, but I really miss your nail polishes, dude. I really like it when you do our nails and we do face masks and watch movies. I—like, I can barely remember a time when we weren’t tired all the time. Saving the universe is great, but…”

“Yeah,” Lance agreed, rubbing circles on Hunk’s back. “It’s great, but it sucks.”

Hunk nodded, “And I miss the sun. I hate to compare myself to Superman – if anything I’d be Batman, but realistically, I’d be your Robin – but it feels like I used to be powered by the sun, and now, when we never see the sun, I’m… I feel weak. It’s—it probably sounds weird. I don’t know.”

“If it’s weird, then we’re both weird,” Lance smiled, wryly. It faded, shifted into an unhappy frown, “I wish I knew how to help, dude, but to be honest, I’m kinda—struggling, too,” he sighed. “If we could only go on a vacation home, or something.”

“That’d be neat,” Hunk smiled, some sadness still around his eyes, but the far-awayness of before was gone. “But you’ve already helped. It feels better to have talked about it. Guess I know why you complain all the time.”

“You’re an asshole,” Lance laughed. “Tell you what, there’s one thing we _can_ do.”

Hunk looked confused at first, but his expression transformed as he understood, as if he’d read Lance’s mind. A slightly giddy smile stole over his face, “Wanna do face masks?”

“It’s like you can read my mind, big guy,” Lance smirked and tilted right into Hunk’s chest and wrapped his arms around his best friend.

Hunk laughed and hugged him back. It was good.

\---

It was good for, like, two days.

Then the numb-sad-grey returned.

\---

Lance was dreaming about sitting around a campfire on the beach, watching the flames stretch up towards the night sky, with a familiar, mulleted silhouette by his side, when the alarm rang out, startling him awake.

He fell out of bed, feeling unbalanced and off-kilter as he wrestled his body into his undersuit and armour, half-jogging towards Blue even as he tugged on his gloves and pushed his helmet down over his head.

Lance listened with half an ear to the back and forth of the situation between Allura and Shiro, as he approached Blue, exchanging a brief look with Keith – who, because he was a dick, slanted a knee-weakening _smirk_ at Lance – before he climbed aboard, thoroughly annoyed and distracted and not at all flustered.

Lance grumbled himself as he forced his attention back to the mission at hand; they’d been lowkey keeping track of Nomula, an unclaimed planet, for a while now, in the hopes that the Galra would come here, and it seemed that it had finally paid off. The original plan was to unwittingly force the Galra to fight on Voltron’s terms, and fortunately, the Galra were predictable enough that they appeared like clockwork as soon as they nosed out the planet. Unfortunately, they’d nosed it out sooner than expected.

It was a good thing Team Voltron was good at improvising.

“ _Attention, paladins,_ ” Allura’s voice rang out over the comms. “ _The Galra ships that have orbited Nomula for the last couple of cycles have tripled in number, and the presence of a Commander ship gives us reason to believe that they might be harbouring prisoners. Our priority is to confirm the validity of this, and if so, free the prisoners and then take down the Commander. Pidge?_ ”

“ _The blueprints of the ship suggest that they have prisoner cells,_ ” Pidge replied, their tone clipped. “ _And its model is consistent with other Galra ships we’ve encountered that had room for prisoners._ ”

A hologram of the blueprints popped up on one of Lance’s screens, with one of the western wings outlined as likely prison blocks.

“ _Then we shall operate on the assumption that they’re holding prisoners_ ,” Allura said, evenly.

“ _They might be planning to start a mining colony on Nomula_ ,” Hunk suggested, cautiously. “ _I mean, it’s a weird that Nomula’s unclaimed, with the resources it has, so it would make sense for the Galra to want it. Um._ ”

“ _Hunk is correct,_ ” Coran agreed. “ _That might be why they brought prisoners – for manual labour._ ”

There was a tense silence, during which Lance assumed that they all gritted their teeth and clenched their jaws collectively, because that was certainly what he was doing.

“ _Then our objective is to stop them before they get that far,_ ” Shiro broke the silence, slipping into his leader-voice seamlessly. “ _Team Voltron, let’s save those prisoners._ ”

Morale duly boosted, Shiro’s pep talk was met with several variations of, _yes, sir!_

The hangar gates opened and the Lions flew out.

“Space, the final frontier,” Lance muttered, because it seemed like bad form to not say it now.

“ _Focus,_ ” came Shiro’s reprimand, immediately.

Lance just barely bit back _spoilsport_ , because he could so be mature when the situation called for it. They caught up with the Galran fleet swiftly. Shiro and Pidge started taking out the smaller ships, while the other three paladins concentrated their attacks on the parts of the commanding vessel where the prisoners shouldn’t be.

Under their ministrations, the vessel took some heavy fire; between Lance and Hunk’s guns, and Keith’s literal fire, the Galra grew more and more frantic. The smaller ships started taking stupid risks that made it easy to target them individually, and Lance let out a victorious whoop when a whole slew of them were scattered, defeated.

Then the most wondrous of wonders unfolded before their eyes—the leading ship started to… split. Purposely, like it was built for it, it disconnected, splitting into several pieces—

“ _How are they_ doing _that?_ ” Pidge shrieked hysterically over the comms.

—leaving one part larger than the others, still in possession of the fire power, while the other parts drifted away.

One of the pieces was, in the scheme of things, medium-sized and oddly shuttle-shaped, and unmistakably corresponded to the parts of the blueprints that Pidge had pointed out as a likely area for storing prisoners. And because it was their lucky day, it was almost immediately pulled into Nomula’s gravitational field.

A full tick of speechlessness passed. Surely—this couldn’t be happening? It seemed _too_ easy.

Lance blinked, “Is that—?”

“ _They’re—letting go of the prisoners?_ ” Hunk asked, giving voice to the words none of them really dared to believe.

“ _I think they’re dropping nonessential weight,_ ” Pidge said, sounding as incredulous as they all felt. “ _Or rather, anything that needs power. This is not standard procedure, even for the Galra. Whatever Commander’s in there must be making his own calls._ ”

“ _The left flank is too damaged, they’re letting go of anything they don’t need,_ ” Keith growled, in agreement with Pidge’s assessment. “ _That—that_ bastard.”

“ _Lance, catch up with the prisoner shuttle and escort it to safety,_ ” Shiro ordered, the most clear-headed one out of the paladins, tone brooking no arguments.

“Yes, boss,” Lance grunted, and patted nearest piece of the console he could reach. “C’mon, Blue, time to save the day.”

Blue expressed joy and excitement and exasperation all at once, but spun around and headed for the prisoner’s shuttle without complaints.

They caught it without any incidents; Blue kind of—nudged it where she wanted it to go, ferried it easily, and provided some support as they landed on Nomula. It was not half as dramatic as Lance might have preferred, but it was safe, which was, perhaps, more important.

Lance hurried out of Blue as soon as they touched down, only allowed himself a few seconds to marvel at the entrancingly soft, grass-like moss under his feet. Nomula had a sun, further away than Earth, but it was—nice. Strengthening. It made no sense, but lifting his shoulders and holding his head high was—easier than it had been in a while.

Lance took a deep breath and faced the newly-freed prisoner with a smile, as they streamed out of the shuttle hesitantly.

There were many of them, in all sorts of shapes and colours and consistencies, but none were human. The majority spoke or understood Common, at least, which made everything easier as Lance gave them the whole, “I am the Blue Paladin of Voltron, sworn to protect the universe, let’s be allies”-shtick.

The prisoners were bleary-eyed and grateful as they huddled close to each other, humble and overwhelmed with their newfound freedom; Lance smiled and let them have their space – they hadn’t had any for god knows how long. They deserved this opportunity to breathe, relax and process everything, and this planet felt pretty ideal for it, actually. The ultraviolet tinge to the otherwise azure sky was a bit unsettling, but the air was fresh, the oversized vegetation a hundred different shades of green, and—

Lance saw a tell-tale glimmer and almost broke his neck whipping around to stare at it again. That—was that—that shimmering, that glittering, he _knew_ that—

There was—a body of water, beyond a copse of trees, a fair but not inconsiderable way away.

Lance swallowed. Maybe he could just—nip over. Take a quick look. Possibly dip his feet into the water, if it turned out to be non-toxic, but at this point just being near it would be—good. His heart ached for it. He _needed_ to go there.

A sense of urgency washed over him, but he took a deep breath and let it out slowly—he couldn’t do anything too rash. The situation was under control here, but the others were still fighting. It was Lance’s job to look after the newly-freed prisoners.

But still.

It wasn’t—that far away. Surely he could just—

“I’m going to check the perimeter,” Lance blurted, abruptly, turning to one of the few prisoners that seemed to pay him any heed, decision made. Blue hummed with disgruntled discontent, instinctively disliking the idea of being apart on a foreign planet, but Lance patted one of her paws and grinned, “I won’t even stray far, kitten. I’ll be right back, just look after these guys, yeah?”

Blue impossibly conveyed the sensation of narrowing her eyes at him, but let him off the hook without any fuss—she could feel the tug within Lance, the yearning for the open expanse of water.

It was a bit further than anticipated, but Lance climbed over roots and crouched under low branches mindlessly, eyes glued to the hint of a shimmer of water between the trees—soon. It wouldn’t be the same as home, but it would be something, and _soon_ —

He was so preoccupied by the water, that he was caught entirely off guard by the Galra soldier that rushed out from behind a tree, blade raised and ready, and crashed into him.

The breath was knocked out of Lance’s lungs with an _oof_ , but he managed to twist mid-air, enough to avoid a blade through the neck.

“ _Lance, report,_ ” Shiro snapped, miraculously having picked up on that _oof_ even through the clamour of battle noises.

The soldier snarled and lunged again, but Lance rolled away, and brandished and activated his bayard in one, smooth move that he was quite proud of. He fired away two shots, which the soldier dodged deftly, but the third one clipped his shoulder. Lance allowed himself a millisecond to smirk, before he lurched back into action.

“Encountered a Galran soldier,” Lance reported dutifully, firing another round. “Seems to be alone. Nothing I can’t handle, _mi Capitán._ ”

The soldier seemed largely undeterred by being shot, but put some serious effort into getting as close as possible—Lance found himself blocking against claws and kicks, striving to keep a few feet between them at all times.

“ _Copy that. Keep your guard up and report if anything happens,_ ” Shiro said, then hissed quietly. It took all of Lance’s willpower not to glance up at the sky. “ _Be careful, Lance._ ”

“You too,” Lance shot back and turned his full attention back to the fight at hand.

With his bayard, Lance was a long-range fighter, and this up close and personal approach that the Galra soldier was working, wasn’t really doing him any favours. So Lance took long strides backwards, closer to the alluring water, never letting his gaze stray from the soldier, as he tried to create some distance between them. It would be great if he could get up in a tree, but he couldn’t risk turning his back for however long that took.

They ended up in a bit of a stalemate; Lance kept scrambling back to maintain the distance, but couldn’t spare the effort to concentrate on his shooting because of it, and the soldier couldn’t get close enough to use his blade.

It lasted until the soldier made the decision to sacrifice his weapon to rid Lance of _his_ , by tossing his blade with deadly accuracy at Lance’s hand. Lance’s reflexes were his saving grace, but he dropped his bayard, and it skidded away into the underbrush.

He cursed colourfully, and shifted his stance into something looser, quicker. This time when the Galra soldier lunged, Lance faced him head on.

“ _Lance, buddy, how’s it going,_ ” Hunk’s voice was faint and stressed, likely from the fight up in the sky. Lance wondered what fresh hell Commander Douchewaffle had unleashed on them now, when he’d already revealed that his ship was actually made out of legos.

“Fine,” Lance bit out, grabbing the soldier around the waist and flipping them over with a grunt. “Bit busy here, pal.”

“ _Gotcha,_ ” Hunk replied and then _cursed_. Hunk _never_ cursed, foul language simply wasn’t written into his DNA—Lance glanced up at the sky instinctively, as if he’d be able to discern the cause for Hunk’s distress from here.

The soldier used this distraction to clock him in the face, but received a solid kick to the chest that sent him reeling backwards for his troubles.

Lance touched his brow gingerly and winced. It was going to bruise, and not in a hot, vaguely bad boy way that he could work.

The stupid freaking Galra soldier, meanwhile, climbed back up on his feet and rolled his shoulder like this was nothing and pulled _another_ blade out from his belt. Figured.

Screw this crap—Lance liked to think that he was pretty good at defending against blades by now, considering how much time he spent sparring with Keith. When the soldier launched himself forward for what felt like the hundredth time – but with renewed vigour thanks to being armed once more – Lance defended well against him. Not as well as he could have, with his bayard out of the picture, but well enough for now.

The thing was, that the paladin armour wasn’t built for hand-to-hand combat; it was built for safe, Lion-enclosed combat. Not this. Not—desperate, dirty grappling.

Lance threw off the Galra soldier, dove under the blade, swept his feet away from under him, but the soldier was up before he could blink, pushing forward, movements sharp and quick and deadly.

“ _Pidge, on your left!_ ” Allura said, sharply, and if she was _this_ active in the battle, then—

The soldier’s bladeless hand was just a touch away from closing around Lance’s throat; Lance had to _focus_ , had to concentrate—

“ _No, Keith, wait—_ “ Shiro’s voice had an urgent, worried undertone, and Lance should really just freaking turn off the comms, he couldn’t _think_ , his heart in his throat.

The soldier pressed close and would’ve caught Lance’s shoulder, if it wasn’t for the armour and a spine-cracking, back-bending manoeuvre.

The uncomfortably familiar sound of explosions going off made Lance flinch; what was _happening_ up there—

“ _Keith!_ ”

Lance’s head flew up, eyes wide—

And the blade pierced through the black of the undersuit.

Lance blinked rapidly, gasped—he glanced down, and there was _something sticking out of his stomach_ —

His eyes darted up to the soldier in disbelief, but the soldier wasn’t having it—he pushed close again, and Lance managed to dredge up just enough strength from his shaken system to shove the soldier back, wheezing, gaining a precious moment of respite. 

He couldn’t—his mind was white, blank—there was—it hurt—everyone was still yelling on the comms, but not about him, not to him—Keith was— _was Keith_ —and the soldier shifted and started forward again—

Dimly, Lance’s hand found the handle of the blade and closed around it, and against his better judgement, against the screaming in his head, he _pulled_ —it hurt, _it hurt_ —but he turned it around, held the sharp end away from his body, and the when the soldier lunged at him—

He ran straight into the blade—

And even through both of their helmets, Lance could see the lights go out in him.

The soldier raised a hand to try and grasp at the blade sticking out his throat, but slumped over before he could even reach it.

Lance felt sick. He’d—the soldier was dead—he’d _killed_ —

But he’d killed before. They killed Galran soldiers on regular basis, took out whole fleets left and right, this was—this wasn’t anything new. It just _felt_ new, face to face, with the soldier’s literal blood on his shaking hands.

He felt ill. He felt queasy; he was going to throw up—

Lance automatically put his hands over his stomach, and froze.

Any thoughts of feeling sick were promptly derailed when his hands came away sticky and dirty with blood.

Reality swept back in and crashed into him hard. Much like the dead soldier had.

Shit, _shit_. This was— not the greatest of things, to put it mildly. Lance bit his tongue to keep from cursing out loud, but words his mother wouldn't approve of were curling behind his teeth, under his tongue. Blue was too far away – it was such a stupid, stupid idea to leave her, he knew now, how had even thought that was a good idea in the first place? – and the others were still in the sky. In space. Fighting. Keith was—

Lance swallowed and pressed a hand against his stomach; the wet slick of blood made the contents of that same punctured organ roll dangerously. Even from hellishly far away, Blue rumbled in concern—but she needed to _stay_ , and he tried to communicate that sentiment to her, she needed to _stay_ and protect the newly-freed prisoners. The hole in Lance's stomach was less important.

He took a careful step away from the dead Galra soldier, then another, only for his foot to catch on a root; Lance stumbled forward and fell painfully to his knees. He couldn't have stopped pained gasp if he tried, and _fuck_ , Hunk – perfect, sun-warm, incredible, attentive Hunk – heard him, and picked up on the strained note straight away.

" _Lance,_ " Hunk said, wary certainty lending his voice a tone of authority. " _Lance, something's wrong. What's wrong?_ "

Lance raised his other hand to press against his stomach as well, and maybe it was just—the _blood_ — the sight of it—the unsettling quantity of it, but his arms felt as though they were growing weaker with every second that passed. He needed help, but the others needed to defeat Commander Douchewaffle and his remaining ships _more_. Lance could—hold on for a while. Surely. Hopefully.

He tried to keep his mind as calm as possible so as to not freak Blue out, but she could nose at the _essence_ of him, so keeping anything secret from her proved to be a bit of a challenge. If he could just—convince her that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

" _Lance,_ " Hunk's voice was tight and worried, like he'd been calling out a couple of times.

Guilt churned in his stomach, along with the nausea—maybe if he kept feeling like shit, the feelings would clog up the hole. He let out a noise that was something like a chuckle, but with a considerable edge to it; with a monumental effort, he lifted one hand to his helmet and bit out, "Kick his ass for me," and tugged the helmet up and off of his head. That way they wouldn't be distracted—they wouldn’t have to hear this.

Oh, _Dios_. He wished he could just—feel Earth’s sun on him again. Feel the patter of raindrops on his face and arms. Bury his feet in the warm sand and feel the ocean lap at his ankles one last time.

“Blue,” he ground out when his Lion made increasingly alarmed noises in his mind. “Blue, it’s fine. Don’t—just— _protect them,_ ” maybe talking about the other paladins just as much as the freed prisoners and maybe Blue heard that, too.

Lance blinked and blinked again, fought to keep at least _some_ semblance of calm, control, reason—something to keep him grounded.

This planet wasn’t all bad, Lance told himself as he dragged in a gulp of air less gracefully than he’d aimed for, but it got the job done. All hail oxygen or whatever. The thing was, that even if it wasn’t the right hue or as warm, this planet had a sun—and the glimmering body of water that lured him away from Blue in the first place was really very pretty. It was no ocean, nothing like home, but the shimmer of light on the water brought its own sense of familiarity. It made some pressure in his chest ease.

Lance fell back to sit on his butt with a grunt—but he was so off balance that he didn’t stop there, and tipped back in the grassy moss. He hissed and pressed his hands against his stomach as well as he could, but it was getting—harder. Difficult to focus, to apply any pressure.

Turning his head required a colossal effort, but gazing at the water was worth it. The wrong-but-okay-sun felt better on his skin than anything had in—months.

Well, that wasn’t completely true. Keith had also felt pretty good on his skin, the few times they grazed each other. Keith—

Keith.

Turned out that this was an opportune moment for Lance the Crier to make a reappearance.

He bit his lip bravely for all of three seconds, before he gave up—he was alone and dying, he could cry all he liked. And—and he had no idea how the others were doing now, with the helmet off, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret the decision to boot it. It was harder to come to grips with the fact that he didn’t know if Keith—

He must still be alive. Blue would’ve noticed if Red lost her connection with Keith, and Lance would’ve felt that, surely. Surely.

But what if he—he was _hurt_ —what if he—

The thought didn’t take bearing, but what _if_ —

 _Worry about yourself, cariño,_ a voice that sounded suspiciously like _abuela’s_ whispered, kindly but sternly, in the back of his head. _Your boy is fine. He is strong._

“ _Abuela?_ ” Lance frowned. The glittering of the water was growing brighter, nearly blinding, but it was still so pretty. “ _Abuela, qué estás haciendo a—_ “

Lance lost track of his words mid-sentence—the water was growing brighter still. He made a noise in the back of his throat and raised a hand to shield his eyes, but it was heavy and moving it felt like—like trying to wade through thigh-high water or running on soft sand that gave way under his feet.

He missed—the beach. It was so bright, but the shimmer of the water danced behind his eyes. Loud noises were crashing back and forth between his ears like waves, and Lance missed—family get-togethers on the beach, campfires on the shore, sneaking too many alfajores, sharing them with the kids. He missed—sunlight and the tight feeling of salt on his skin—Lance missed family together-dinners over weird alien food, cuddling close and braving the stars, touches that were warm and grounding, nudging and nail painting, late night conversations—

 _Cariño, abuela_ whispered, more insistently, _mi querido nieto, do not sleep. It’s not time for you to sleep._

What was he—he was bleeding. The others were—fighting. The ground was—shaking?

Lance cracked open his eyes, unsure of when they’d closed in the first place, and saw—Blue, heard Blue, _felt_ Blue—

She whined, worried, too big for the clearing, but she managed to fold her huge body under her legs and leaned forward, nudged Lance’s side with her nose so carefully, so gently, for someone so big—

He hiccupped, realising that he was still crying, which suddenly felt considerably less dignified with an audience. But it was Blue, Blue, _Blue_ —

Who was supposed to be guarding the—she was—they were in the middle of something.

Lance couldn’t—think. Couldn’t hold onto any thoughts, they came and went with the velocity of shooting stars. He’d thought he knew what out of control felt like, but this was—worse. Scary.

God, he wanted his _mum_. He wanted a hug and a stern talking-to and a lesson in the finer points of making soup. He wanted to play pranks on his sisters and be blatantly outdone by the twins, complain about being delegated diaper-changing duties by his brother, tease his eldest sister for getting knocked up _for, what, the fourth time? I know your husband’s hot, sis, but contraceptives exist for a reason_ , and get a smack to the back of his head and a fond eye roll. He wanted to offer his expertise to his little sister, which she'd accept purely out of sympathy, she outsmarted him on so many levels—he wanted to make a show of shouldering the babysitting duties like it was a hardship, when truly, there were few things he’d rather do.

Lance wanted to go _home._

He wanted to go home to Earth, but this time—this time the home on the castleship would do, too.

Blue was making—sounds, comforting but far away.

 _Cariño, do not sleep, abuela_ whispered chidingly, _open your eyes._

Someone was calling his name.

_Open your eyes._

“ _Abuela?_ ” Lance mouthed, confused.

“You _shit_ ,” a toe-curlingly familiar voice spat, threatening to put a permanent stop the Lance’s already weakly fluttering heart.

 _Keith_.

Lance collected whatever strength he had left and followed his _abuela’s_ advice; he opened his eyes and was immediately assaulted by bright, white-blinding light.

It didn’t really matter.

“You’re—alive,” Lance croaked, more relieved than he knew how to express. He could just make out Keith’s silhouette, but he’d never been so happy to see the faint outline of someone in his life.

“You idiot,” Keith hissed, hoarsely. Backlit by the sun, his stupid mullet looked like a halo. “You—you’re _barely_ —“

“I thought you—I heard,” Lance’s fingers were trembling, head spinning. Cold was spreading through his body. “Explosions,” he finished, lamely.

“Well, you thought _wrong_ , dumbass,” Keith muttered, taking Lance into his arms with heart-wrenching care. “D’you really think I’d go down that easy?”

“I could _take_ you down,” Lance shot back, nonsensically. Lo and behold, he was actually mostly lucid for this arm-cradling bonding moment.

“I’d like to see you try, dipshit,” Keith tugged the corners of his mouths to a ghost of a smirk, but it was belied by how he was trembling almost as much as Lance was. “There were some issues, but it’s sorted now—for the most part. The others are on their way, so you’d better stay awake until then, _Lancer._ ”

“ _Keefer,_ ” Lance returned in the same tone of voice, without really meaning to.

“You’re a doofus,” Keith shook his head, and if Lance wasn’t blinded by the brightness around them, he’d be tempted to say that there was some fondness in the gesture.

“You’re really bringing your pet name game, man,” Lance felt the need to point out. It was getting really cold—his teeth were chattering.

Keith set his jaw. cradled Lance closer and grumbled, “They’re not _pet names_ , they’re expressions of your idiocy. And keep your eyes open, stupid,” and let his warmth seep from his body to Lance’s. It wasn’t making much of a difference, but it was a sweet thought. And close—close like this was—nice.

But there was no denying the inevitability of the situation.

“Take me back to Earth,” Lance murmured, lips brushing against Keith’s throat. “When I… When I— please take me back—”

“ _Lance,_ ” Keith hissed, strangled, like suddenly _he_ was the dying one. “Don’t—you don’t get to _say_ shit like that, you don’t—“

Way back when, an age past by now, Garrison-Lance had hated how effortlessly cool, calm and collected then-Asshole-Keith was at all times, how it had seemed like nothing could rattle him. And he’d seen Keith rattled plenty of times since then, but this—this was new. This was Keith barely holding on, clinging stubbornly to whatever he could.

“What about our—stupid fucking— _Star Trek marathon_ , huh, dumbass? Are you backing out?” Keith choked out. Lance wondered if he realised that he was rocking them back and forth. “You _loser_ , I win.”

“In your dreams,” Lance managed, bleakly. And because there was literally no time like the present and he was so cold, so _tired_ , he added, “I think ‘m in love with you, space cowboy.”

Keith let out a series of strangled, spluttering noises, “Anyone ever tell you that you have the worst timing in the universe? Keep your fucking eyes open, dumbass.”

“They’re open,” Lance frowned, words slurring. Then he opened them. It was so bright, it hurt. It was so cold. “I would’a told you sooner, but—didn’t think you’d—care to. You know. Shouldn’t’a told you now—don’t wanna—hurt you.”

He expected to hear something like, _you think_ you _can hurt_ me _? Think again, dumbass_. He didn’t expect a growl to emerge from so deep in Keith’s chest that he could feel its vibrations rumble through his own body; didn’t expect a pair of wet lips against his temple, “You’ll hurt me if you _die_ , you jerk, so don’t you _dare._ ”

Blue’s worry was a storm that boomed like thunder in the distance.

“I’ll try,” Lance swore, which was rude of him, because his eyelids were growing heavier and the icy feeling had spread out to his extremities, despite the sunshine overhead.

_Stay awake, cariño._

“I’ll kick your ass if you die on me,” lips on his forehead, cheek, the bridge of his nose.

Lance thought that maybe he smirked, or maybe it was more of a smile, and whispered, “Never.”

All things considered, it was a passable comeback to waste his last breath on.

_Cariño—_

The world faded.

\---

Lance woke up, which was considerably more than he was expecting.

The healing pod opened with a soft _whoosh_ and Lance stumbled out of it inelegantly, blindly, on legs that wouldn’t hold his weight—

Only to be caught immediately. Held against a warm chest, silky hair tickling his cheek.

“You’re the fucking worst,” Keith growled and kissed him.

Keith was probably aiming for anger and all teeth, but he was hot and close and shaking apart, tender like it killed him to take it slow, but like he couldn’t keep from softening his bites. His lips were dry, like he’d been biting them without thinking, his broad palms warm brands on the hinge of Lance’s jaw and weighty on his ribs, drawing him in closer, _closer_ —

Lance felt light-headed, but one of his hand found Keith’s shoulders, and the other his hair—he fell into the kiss like gravity was pulling him down, like a thread was tied around his breastbone and tugging him closer. Their breaths mingled, lips sliding together like it was the most natural thing in the universe—a nip here, a slip of tongue there, and Lance’s legs were probably literally going to give out any second, but he’d be damned if he went out without giving as good as he got.

They broke apart slowly, panting slightly, and Lance hadn’t realised his eyes were closed until they fluttered open, like some stupid echo of dying on Nomula. His lips were tingling, which they had no business doing, as that was completely ridiculous.

Keith took longer to open his eyes, his dark eyelashes fanned out against his cheeks, before his eyes darted up to meet Lance’s. He was blushing, which was delightful, and his eyes were _sparkling_ —Lance knocked their foreheads together gently and stayed close, breathed, not sure whose grin was wider or more shit-eating.

It was pretty perfect, until someone cleared their throat audibly behind them.

“When you’re done swooning in Keith’s arms, I’d like my turn to hug you, man,” Hunk said, abruptly breaking the atmosphere.

To Lance’s eternal disgrace, his traitorous cheeks heated, and he spun around and swore, “I’m not _swooning_ , dude. There’s no _swooning_ going on here.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night, man,” Hunk grinned tearily. “But I’m pretty sure that if you looked up the textbook definition of it right now, there’d be a picture of you right there.”

Keith snorted, too pleased with himself, so Lance smacked his arm. Lightly. He was lenient only because his knees felt like jelly and it was, like, eighty-five percent thanks to Keith’s lips.

Hunk laughed at them and opened his arms; leaping into them was essentially ingrained in Lance like a pavlovian response, but he made sure to complain; “I have no idea why people think you’re the nice one, man, you can be such a dick.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hunk denied, but he pressed close, wrapped his arms around Lance and held on like he might disappear if he let go. Lance wasn’t sure which one of them sniffled first, but when they pulled back from each other, they were both rubbing their eyes surreptitiously.

Pidge rolled their eyes and then tackled Lance into a hug that deserved a place on Lance’s list of Best Hugs of All Time, pointy elbows and toe-trampling and all. Pidge shook their head, “You literally had _one_ job, Lance, I can’t _believe_ you.”

“Hey,” he started, but then had no idea know how to follow up— _the sunlight made me feel strong for the first time in months_ or _the sight of water made me go crazy_ or _I miss the ocean more than I’d miss my legs?_ They weren’t really any defences that would resound in the others’ chests like it did in his. And Pidge was right, really – he shouldn’t have strayed from Blue in the first place. Logically, he shouldn’t have. Logically. “I, ah—messed up. Sorry, Pidges.”

“You’re an idiot,” Pidge punched his arm. “Just don’t do it again.”

Lance took it graciously, with a slightly self-deprecating smile, “No promises, but I’m not super eager for a repeat.”

“Good enough,” Pidge conceded, and ceded the floor to Allura.

Allura slapped her hands over Lance’s cheeks and looked him dead in the eye, “Don’t do that again.”

“I—I think we just established that I can’t promise that?” Lance said, hesitantly. This was—not what he’d expected.

“I know,” Allura sighed and very briefly touched their forehead together before taking half a step back. “We’re at war and some things are—unavoidable. But you took an unnecessary risk, Lance, and we nearly lost you, which would’ve made it impossible to form Voltron,” she paused for just a second. “But more than that, it would be devastating for all of us. It’s been—very quiet without you.”

Lance touched a hand to Allura’s wrist and wanted nothing more than to crack a joke, but nothing even remotely appropriate came to mind, so he swallowed, and offered, “I can’t promise not to put myself in danger again, princess, but I promise that I’m gonna try _really hard_ not to?”

A smile flitted over Allura’s face, “I suppose that will have to do,” and then handed him over to Shiro like they were passing around a toy. It was embarrassing, but their love and care was so clear it was almost—tangible. It made him want to duck his head and hide, because he wasn’t—wasn’t used to feeling so overwhelmingly happy so far away from his family. But then, these guys were undeniably family too, by now.

Even if he’d kind of—acknowledged that subconsciously before, it settled in his chest differently now. More sure, more solid – a warm feeling for Lance to curl around on bad days.

Shiro, unaware of Lance’s inner touchy-feely monologue, had brought out his Gently Disapproving Frown, but kept his arms around Lance’s shoulders, “You shouldn’t have taken off your helmet,” he admonished, face taut with concern. Then, in a smaller voice, “We—I was worried about you.”

Lance was definitely not blinking back tears, “Admit it, Shiro, you were just worried I wouldn’t be able to do your nails anymore.”

Shiro chuckled like it was punched out of him, and maybe his eyes were a little shiny, “Shoot, you figured it out.”

They grinned goofily at each other, before Shiro ruffled his hair and gently pushed him to the last pair of open arms—

Coran enveloped him in the hug to end all hugs, and smiled so widely that Lance could almost hear the happy crinkling at the corners of his eyes, “Welcome home, my dear boy. It’s good to have you back.”

Holding back tears was simply not physically feasible at this point, but Lance rubbed his eyes and grinned, “Thanks, Coran.”

The ocean still called to him, he still missed his family back on Earth more than he could bear, but—this was good, too. Maybe this could work out, somehow. Lance didn’t think that he’d stop being sad, but maybe—maybe the grey-numb-sad days would be less heavy now.

“Coran, man, you should give Lance back to Keith before he snaps something in half,” Hunk snorted, good-naturedly.

“There’s no _giving Lance back_ ,” Lance said, backing away from Coran. “ _Lance_ is his own person and can do _whatever he wants._ ”

“Yeah,” Keith agreed, rolling his eyes too deliberately. “Get your own lives.”

Lance nodded in agreement, even as he sidled back to Keith’s side. Keith leaned close, pressing their shoulders together, a hand curling at the small of Lance’s back. This proved nothing.

Hunk’s grin spelled trouble, “I don’t know, man,” he huffed. “Living vicariously through the two of you’s been a lot of fun.”

“Yeah,” Pidge agreed. “You’ve been providing the castle with at least sixty-five percent of all its drama. We can finally settle the betting pool now, but what then? What will we do now?”

Lance groaned. This was terrible.

(It was also pretty great).

\---

Later— _hours_ later, after they’d ushered Lance across half the castleship and had dinner and updated him on the situation — the freed prisoners were fine, Commander Douchewaffle had been defeated, but the Galra had some new technology up their sleeves that, from this brief introduction, promised a sea of troubles — Keith tugged Lance through the halls and to the training deck, because he was obsessive like that, and sat them down in their usual spot in front of the panorama window. 

“You should just move your stuff here, mullet head,” Lance poked him in the side. “No one will complain. You spend more time here than the rest of us combined, dude. Wait, on second thought, maybe we should just host an intervention for you. The first step is admitting that you have a problem.”

“The only problem I have is with _you,_ ” Keith snarked back, without heat. 

“Yeah, I feel your pain, man, it must be pretty hard to resist my good looks and countless charms all the time,” Lance grinned and grabbed hold of Keith’s hand because he could now. Oh boy, if only Garrison-Lance could see him. 

“I don’t _have_ to resist them now, do I?” Keith shot back and inched closer, eyes darting down to Lance’s lips. “Got you now.”

Lance swallowed thickly and decided that he didn’t need this kind of suspension in his life, and just stole a quick kiss before Keith could react. The dumbfounded expression that stole over Keith’s face was worth the god-awful blush Lance could feel rising in his cheeks. 

Lance came from a big family—he lost all sense of shame when he was _thirteen_ , he had no reason to be _blushing_ like this here, now, because of _Asshole-Keith_. 

Keith, of course, seemed to be appreciating it, probably because he was an asshole. Their fingers were still locked together, but he raised his other hand and traced his fingertips lightly along Lance’s cheeks, which did not help cool them down.

Silence stretched between them—Keith seemed pretty mystified by Lance’s burning fucking face, and Lance stared out the window for lack of anything better to do.

He was just preparing a crack about how he was finally speechless, when Keith’s expression tightened—”You were in the healing pod for nine days. You idiot.”

Lance lowered his face. Yeah, Hunk had told him earlier. _Nine days_. It was a new record, but not one Lance was overly proud of. However, faced with the same situation again, he couldn’t say that he wouldn’t make the same decision; the water had been _right there_ , and he knew in his bones that he would have regretted it if he hadn’t taken the chance, poorly-thought-out though it was.

But Keith—probably wouldn’t get it. Lance sighed, “I’m sorry—”

“Shut it,” Keith cut off, unexpectedly. “It’s—it’s not _fine,_ but I know you miss Earth. And when you were out, Hunk kept—kept telling us all these stories about how you basically grew up on the beach, how you spend every holiday by the ocean with your family. So I—get it. I get that you felt like you—needed to go to the water, or whatever.”

An intense wave of gratitude rose within Lance, mixed with a healthy dose of heart-stopping, helpless affection; he felt warm all over, a little like he was going to cry again, but ultimately settled on throwing his arms around Keith’s neck and clinging. Keith clung back just as tightly, and Lance closed his eyes and buried his face in Keith’s neck, let his hand wander up and bury themselves it that ridiculous poof of hair.

“Your mullet is so stupid, _Dios me ayude,_ ” Lance groaned, but didn’t pull his hands away.

“You love it,” Keith stated, smirk clear in his voice, fingers dancing up and down Lance’s spine.

“I have no idea why, but I do,” Lance shook his head mournfully. “So this is what the world has come to.”

Keith snorted, “Dumbass.”

“Dumbass. _Dumbass,_ he says,” Lance heaved an exaggerated, dramatic sigh. “Where’s the creativity, buddy? I seem to remember a whole slew of pet names. Where’s the Lancer, the dipshit, the doofus? And let’s not forget the most memorable of them all — _shit_. It’s like you don’t even care anymore.”

“I might actually strangle you,” Keith said, tone flat. The funny thing about Keith, was that his body didn’t always care that he was trying to act aloof and lowkey murderous — his shoulders shook with the amusement he didn’t give voice to, and Lance absolutely adored it. 

Lance sat back with a grin and let his hands fall down to rest on Keith’s shoulders, “No, you won’t.”

Keith rolled his eyes towards the ceiling like it might hold some answers or a few extra ounces of patience. 

Lance knew he was pushing his luck, but he brushed his fingers against Keith’s throat, neck, collarbones, keeping his eyes fixed on anything other than his face, “Because you _care about me_. You care, space cowboy, about _me_. So you won’t strangle me. Because you _care_. About me.”

Okay, maybe that was taking it a bit far, but Keith just narrowed his eyes at him and said, “Yeah, I fucking do, dipshit,” like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Lance’s heart leapt up in his throat and he blinked. And blushed, because of course he did. “Um,” he said, eloquently.

Keith rolled his eyes again, but reached up to take both of Lance’s hands into his own, “I’ve cradled your unconscious body in my arms _twice_ , jerk, I don’t do that for just anyone.”

Lance let out a strangled little laugh, “Oh, be still, my heart. You know exactly what to say to make my heart flutter, mullet.”

There was a risk that Keith could see that Lance genuinely meant that, which was pretty inconvenient. Lance cleared his throat and tried to regain some ground, “You ever been to the beach, Mister I’ve-Seen-Every-Season-Of-The-X-Files-Three-Times?” 

Turned out that Keith was a closet romantic or something, because he brought their joined hands up to his lips and kissed Lance’s knuckles in a move that should’ve been disgusting and sappy, but ended up making Lance’s fragile heart skip, like, three beats. That couldn’t be healthy. 

“Okay, let me revise that,” Lance’s voice didn’t break, it _didn’t_. “You ever been to the beach, Mister _I-Pick-Up-My-Moves-From-Sleazy-Films-Three-Times-As-Old-As-Me?_ ”

“I’m not hearing any complaints,” Keith pointed out, smugly. Then, more seriously, “And—no. I haven’t.”

That was quite a loaded answer if there ever was one, and Lance resisted the urge to pry—there would be time. Instead he draped himself over Keith’s shoulders, half in his lap, and stole a kiss, then another, and a third—Keith was like sunshine against his lips and under his hands. 

“Cool,” Lance breathed when he finally managed to tear himself away, but he lingered close, sharing Keith’s breathing space. “I’m pretty familiar with the best beach of Varadero,” _pretty familiar_ being the understatement of the century; he knew that beach like the back of his hand, his chest tightening with the ache of longing at the mere thought of it. “And I could take you when we get back to Earth. If you want.”

For not being a people’s person, Keith was picking up on Lance’s moods well—somehow, he could sense when Lance was offering up a piece of his heart, and knew to hold back on the stupid bickering for a couple minutes. He smiled, a slow, small thing, eyes sparkling like this was some stupid Harlequin novel— “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that.” 

There was a very real and not inconsiderable risk that Lance’s face was going to actually split in half from how widely he was smiling, but his heart felt _light_ , at home. 

Maybe this would be alright.


End file.
